Coming up Rod Stewart was a gravedigger who wanted to be a rockstar. So in his spare time, he wrote music and played in a band hoping to make it. Rod wrote a song called Maggie May about the most embarrassing moment of his life. He thought the song rambled on, had no hook, and was crap. It was put onto the Bside of Reason to Believe, a song he didn’t even write. Well, it so happens that Reason to Believe sputtered on the radio and a DJ saved his career by playing the crappy Bside Maggie May… It made Rod Stewart a global sensation hitting #1 across the world. The story of how Rod's most embarrassing moment became his lifeline. Next on Professor of Rock.

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Hey music junkies, Professor of Rock, always here to celebrate the greatest artists and the greatest songs of all time. If you remember a time where we only had 3 or 4 channels on tv You are going to love this channel. Pure unadulterated Nostalgia We also have a patreon where we host all kinds of exclusive content including some up coming specials specifically a live event that I’m going to be doing on the history of Professor of Rock. Just Click on the link below. Also check out our latest merch just below.

It’s time for another episode from our series the new standards This show takes an indepth look into songs that transcend genre, decade, and fads songs that are monumental touchstones in our culture and society. On previous episodes we have covered Cat’s in the Cradle by Harry Chapin, Ordinary World by Duran Duran, and Somebody by Depeche Mode. Todays song inductee was a #1 hit in 1971. But it kind of started In the summer of ’61, where Roderick David Stewart (Rod for short), Rod Stewart, and a bunch of his buddies sneaked into the Beaulieu Jazz Festival in Hampshire, England, by stealthily crawling through a large runoff pipe that led into the festival grounds.

Once they were inside the festival, the lads made a beeline to the beer tent, where 16 year old Rod was approached by a much older woman on the prowl, looking to entice a young man to satisfy her carnal urges. It didn’t take much to convince Rod to saunter off with his pursuer to a private patch of lawn.. where he lost his innocence….The whole experience lasted less than a minute, leaving Rod disappointed, and embarrassed by how quickly it all ended. Little did he know that his embarrassing moment would be the impetus to one of the grandest song to the 70s but the journey to get to that point was even more compelling.

Ten years later….he would reflect back on that experience, as the impetus to compose “Maggie May,” an unlikely hit that vaulted him from rock celebrity status in the UK... to global superstardom. Long before Rod Stewart was knighted Sir Rod, and a Hall of Fame performer selling more than a quarter billion records, he was a bluecollar teenager, working as a paperboy, and a gravedigger at the Highgate Cemetery in the London.

When he began to pursue music, he busked his way across Europe playing the harmonica. At perhaps his lowest point, Rod was sleeping under bridges in Barcelona, Spain, and was arrested for vagrancy...and then deported. Of course In the late 60’s Rod was recruited to be the lead vocalist for the Jeff Beck Group, and later followed his friend Ron Wood to join the Small Faces eventually.